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GAO-02-707R: 

United States General Accounting Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

May 24, 2002: 

The Honorable Henry J. Hyde: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Tom Lantos: 
Ranking Minority Member: 
Committee on International Relations: 
House of Representatives: 

Subject: Issues in Implementing International Peace Operations: 

Peacekeeping operations play an important role in advancing U.S. 
security interests. The operations attempt to maintain international 
security in locations such as the Congo, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Bosnia, 
and most recently Afghanistan. Between fiscal years 1996 and 2001, we 
estimate that the United States provided $3.45 billion in direct 
contributions and $24.2 billion in voluntary or indirect contributions 
to 33 U.N. peacekeeping operations in these and other locations. 
[Footnote 1] 

In light of the substantial U.S. commitments to ongoing peace 
operations and the potentially high costs for new operations in 
Central Asia and elsewhere, in late January and early February 2002 we 
briefed staff from your committee and the Senate Foreign Relations 
Committee on our observations of three aspects of multidimensional 
peace operations: (1) negotiating and enforcing peace agreements; (2) 
using military force to create a secure environment in which a peace 
agreement can be implemented; and (3) administering and rebuilding 
civic functions. This correspondence summarizes that briefing, which 
was drawn from our extensive past work examining peace operations. 
Enclosure I documents the information we provided to you in the 
briefing. 

Since 1990, we have issued 33 reports dealing with 16 of these 
operations. We have undertaken field studies while those operations 
were occurring and provided analyses to Congress on peacekeeping 
efforts in these countries. 

Summary: 

In summary, we found that the prospects for implementing peace 
agreements are enhanced if all major parties to the conflict 
participate in negotiating the agreements and if these agreements 
include specific authority and mechanisms for their enforcement. For 
example, the peace agreement for Cambodia had 18 signatory nations, 
which gave the United Nations the authority and support it needed to 
confront the Khmer Rouge and conduct elections. In Bosnia and 
Herzegovina (hereafter referred to as Bosnia), the Dayton Accords 
specifically gave the Office of the High Representative authority to 
implement the accords, including adopting a common citizenship law, 
introducing a new currency, and removing local officials obstructing 
the peace process. Similarly, in Kosovo, the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization (NATO) had authority to provide security, which it used 
to demilitarize the Kosovo Liberation Army. These mechanisms were 
critical to begin building durable local institutions that could 
resolve disputes and enforce decisions. Moreover, to end hostilities, 
political agreements sometimes defer politically sensitive issues that 
must be dealt with later, such as the final political status of the 
disputed city of Brcko in Bosnia and the creation of a war crimes 
tribunal for Cambodia. 

Peace operations are more likely to succeed if the military forces 
carrying out the operations have clear objectives, sufficient 
resources, and the authority to carry out their tasks. Military forces 
can help create a secure environment for civilian work to proceed. For 
example, the NATO-led deployments in the Balkans since the mid-1990s 
had sufficient troops and equipment and clear authority to enforce the 
agreements. These operations quickly created secure conditions to 
allow civilian organizations to conduct elections, begin 
reconstruction, and initiate police training. In contrast, U.N.-led 
peacekeeping missions in Somalia and in Bosnia in the early 1990s 
failed, in part, because they lacked sufficient troops and arms. In 
addition, the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia lacked clear authority to 
carry out its mandates. Furthermore, we have observed that non-U.N. 
multinational forces have tended to fare better than those led by the 
United Nations because they had a clearer understanding of the rules 
guiding the use of force and a greater certainty that individual 
national contingents would carry out the orders of the peace 
operation's leadership. In Bosnia, the NATO-led successor force to the 
U.N. peacekeeping mission had sufficient troops, equipment, and 
readily available reinforcements, and its objectives were clearly 
understood both by its troops and by the local authorities. In 
contrast, one national contingent of a U.N.-led force in Somalia 
conducted negotiations with a warlord opposed to the peace operation, 
while the rest of the force was trying to capture him. 

We also observed that the slow or late deployment of a peace 
operation's civil administrators might impede efforts to establish 
good governance. In both Kosovo and Cambodia, the slow deployment of 
the operations' civil administration allowed the dominant factions in 
each country to take over key government posts and key ministries. 
This undercut the chance to build fair government and control 
political corruption. Also, peace operations are more successful if 
their civil administration components respond to the countries' 
evolving needs and are coordinated with military operations. For 
example, in Kosovo, the peace operation responded to the emerging need 
to control civil unrest by providing police forces trained in riot 
control. In Cambodia, the high degree of civil-military coordination 
allowed the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees within 1 year, 
which allowed legitimate elections to proceed. Finally, peace 
operations tended to be more successful when locals participated at 
every reasonable opportunity. In Bosnia, for example, growing local 
economic and civic participation in peace implementation efforts 
allowed more moderate political candidates to gain support, thus 
reducing the political influence of opponents of the peace process. 

Background: 

Our observations apply to multidimensional peace operations—operations 
that have security, political, and humanitarian objectives that are 
undertaken simultaneously or sequentially to build a sustainable 
peace. Multidimensional operations are typically conducted in two 
phases. In the first phase, during an ongoing conflict, multinational 
military forces try to provide stability in a country that may have 
multiple warring factions, a humanitarian crisis, the breakdown of 
government and law enforcement, economic collapse, and rampant 
corruption. The multinational forces' mandates might include 
protection of humanitarian operations and providing the security 
necessary for the United Nations or other negotiator to broker a 
political settlement. 

In the second phase, the United Nations typically leads or authorizes 
a peace operation with regional security forces, such as those 
provided by NATO, and multilateral financial institutions, such as the 
World Bank. To build a sustainable peace, the operation conducts 
complex and costly tasks associated with, for example, improving or 
restoring the rule of law, rebuilding infrastructure and economic 
institutions, monitoring human rights, safeguarding humanitarian and 
refugee resettlement operations, overseeing democratic reform and 
transfers of power via elections, and controlling corruption. 

Scope and Methodology: 

To prepare our briefing, we analyzed 33 GAO reports on peace 
operations produced since 1990. These reports included case studies in 
16 countries, most of which included in-country fieldwork. In 
addition, GAO has produced more than 45 reports on activities related 
to peacekeeping, including refugee assistance and rule of law issues. 
We examined political agreements, use of military force, and civil 
administration aspects of numerous peacekeeping operations, but we 
drew our examples from some of the largest multidimensional 
peacekeeping operations in four countries—Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia, 
and Kosovo. Although we noted elements that contributed to the 
relative success or failure of these peace operations, we did not 
generalize the results of these case studies as applying to all future 
peace operations or attempt to determine which aspects of past 
operations might apply to specific peace operations in the future. 
From this analysis, we derived overall issues or questions associated 
with effective peace implementation operations that could be raised in 
the oversight of any future peacekeeping operation. 

The roles of the United Nations and other international organizations 
varied widely in the multidimensional peace operations conducted in 
each of these countries. First, we examined the accomplishments of the 
United Nations Advance Mission in Cambodia (1991-1992) and the United 
Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (1992-1993). These U.N. 
missions were established to ensure the implementation of a 
comprehensive political settlement. The United Nations had overall 
responsibility for maintaining the ceasefire, monitoring human rights, 
organizing elections, providing civil administration, implementing law 
and order, and helping resettle refugees. 

In Somalia, the United Nations at first shared responsibility for the 
implementation of the peace operation with a multinational military 
force led by the United States. The U.N. Operation in Somalia (1992-
1995) conducted a humanitarian operation while the multinational 
military force provided security. The U.N. mission subsequently 
assumed responsibility for enforcing the peace and replaced the 
multinational troops with a U.N.-led military force. 

The U.N.-led Protection Force (1992-1995) in Bosnia and elsewhere in 
the former Yugoslavia at first provided humanitarian aid and then 
unsuccessfully attempted to establish the peace and security necessary 
to negotiate an overall peace agreement. Once a U.S.-led effort to 
negotiate a peace agreement succeeded in late 1995, responsibility for 
the peace implementation operation in Bosnia was divided among a 
number of international organizations. The Office of the High 
Representative oversees the civilian tasks of the peace agreement, 
which are carried out by the United Nations, the European Union, and 
other international organizations. The United Nations Mission in 
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995 to the present) focuses primarily on 
monitoring and restructuring local police forces and mine clearance 
efforts. The NATO-led Stabilization Force in Bosnia implements the 
military tasks related to maintaining the ceasefire and disarmament of 
the former warring parties. 

In contrast to the limited U.N. role in Bosnia, the United Nations 
Mission in Kosovo (1999 to the present) serves as an interim 
government and coordinates all aspects of the recovery and 
reconstruction of the province pending a final resolution of its 
political status. The NATO-led international security presence, or 
Kosovo Force, enforces the related military agreements and helps the 
U.N. mission provide public security and order. 

We discussed our briefing with officials from the Departments of State 
and Defense and incorporated their technical comments where 
appropriate. We also reviewed numerous nongovernmental reports and 
documents on peacekeeping and discussed our briefing with peacekeeping 
experts. We considered relevant peacekeeping analyses and expert 
opinions in completing our briefing. 

We conducted work for this report from December 2001 to February 2002 
in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
We are sending copies of this letter to the Chairs and Ranking 
Minority Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the House 
Armed Services Committee, and other interested committees. This letter 
will also be available on GAO's home page at [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staffs have any questions concerning this report, 
please call me at (202) 5128979. Key contributors to this report 
included Tet Miyabara, B. Patrick Hickey, Dave Maurer, Richard 
Boudreau, Addison Ricks, and Lynn Cothern. 

Signed by: 

Joseph A. Christoff, Director: 
International Affairs and Trade: 

Enclosure: 

[End of section] 

Enclosure I: Issues in Implementing International Peace Operations: 

Figure: U.N. Peace Operations 1996-2001: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustrated world map] 

Angola (2): 
Balkans (7): 
Central African Republic: 
Cyprus: 
Democratic Republic of Congo: 
East Timor (2): 
Ethiopia/Eritrea: 
Georgia: 
Guatemala: 
India/Pakistan: 
Iraq/Kuwait: 
Liberia: 
Middle East (4): 
Rwanda: 
Sierra Leone (2): 
Tajikistan: 
Western Sahara: 

Source: GAO. 

[End of figure] 

Objective: 
Make observations about the planning and implementation of past 
international peace operations 

Phases of Multidimensional Operations: 

1) Typical Conditions: Ongoing Conflict: 
* Regional security threats; 
* Multiple warring parties; 
* Genocide, famine, rape, and torture; 
* Courts, police, and markets not functioning; 
* Crime and corruption rampant. 

Multinational forces try to restore or provide stability and security, 
typically to: 
* Protect humanitarian operations; 
* Provide a transition time for a U.N. operation to deploy. 

U.N. operations try to: 
* Facilitate implementation of political accord; 
* He1p establish and control interim government. 

2) Typical Conditions: Post Conflict: 
* Unstable government; 
* Widespread corruption; 
* Complex and costly tasks; 
* Multiple NGOs; 
* Shattered economy; 
* A need to reintegrate fighters; 
* Rule of law lacking; 

U.N.-led or coalition-led multilateral operations, with World Bank and 
others: 
* Provide stability with a multinational force; 
* Help build police and justice system; 
* He1p construct administrative and political institutions; 
* He1p build economic institutions—banking, finance, and treasury; 
* Provide for economic reconstruction; 
* Provide refugee return and repatriation; 
* Ensure that basic human rights are honored; 
* Advise and oversee elections, transfers of power. 

3) Sustainable Peace. 

GAO Work on Peace Operations: 

GAO work includes: 

* 32 reports in 12 years; 

* Case studies of operations in 16 countries and most included in-
country work; 

* More than 45 reports on related activities such as rule of law and 
refugee assistance. 

For this briefing, we focused on peace operations in Somalia, 
Cambodia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and three components of these operations: 

* Political agreements; 
* Use of military force; 
* Civil administration. 

Observations on Political Agreements: 

[Photograph: Leaders sign Dayton Peace Accords] 

Source: Institute for Global Communications. 

Participation of major internal and external parties in negotiations 
enhanced prospects for implementing agreements. 

* The international community backed the High Representative in 
enforcing the Dayton Accords, which had been signed by representatives 
of all major parties to the conflict; 

* U.N. military in Somalia lacked an internationally sanctioned peace 
accord, thus depriving its activities of legitimacy with parts of the 
Somali population; 

* China and 18 nations signed the Cambodian agreement and supported 
its implementation despite Khmer Rouge opposition. 

[Photograph: U.N. returns refugees to Cambodia] 

Source: GAO. 

[Photograph: Police cadets graduate in Kosovo] 

Source: OSCE. 

Writing specific activities into a peace agreement enhanced 
implementation of the agreement. 

* Cambodian peace settlement set timelines for the repatriation of 
refugees, which the U.N. used to force the pace of repatriation; 

* Kosovo Agreements gave the U.N. and the OSCE responsibility for the 
creation of a Kosovo police force and allowed NATO to demilitarize the 
Kosovo Liberation Army; 

* Dayton Accords defined the rules and schedule for disarming the 
parties, which NATO enforced when violations occurred. 
	
[Photograph: Wolfgang Petrisch is high representative for Dayton 
implementation in Bosnia] 

Source: www.ohr.int. 

[Photograph: Kosovars greet entering KFOR troops] 

Source: Department of National Defence, Canada. 

For successful implementation, agreements often required mechanisms
for their interpretation and enforcement. 

* To enforce Dayton Accords, the Office of the High Representative 
annulled laws and removed officials; 

* In Kosovo, the NATO military force was charged with enforcing peace; 

* Initially, U.N. operations in Cambodia did not have a special 
prosecutor's office to enforce human rights; human rights were widely 
abused. 

[Figure: Kosovo's status is unresolved: map of Yugoslavia] 

Source: Central Intelligence Agency. 

[Figure: Brcko is important to all ethnic groups in Bosnia: map of 
Bosnia and Herzegovina] 

Source: Central Intelligence Agency. 

To end hostilities, parties sometimes deferred politically sensitive 
issues. 

* Parties to the Kosovo conflict agreed on ceasefire and repatriation 
of refugees but left final political status of Kosovo undecided; 

* Dayton Accords drew boundaries between the parties but left open 
eventual control of Brcko, a strategic city in Bosnia; 

* Paris peace negotiations used participation of Khmer Rouge to create 
a peace settlement but did not provide for a war crimes tribunal. 

Observations on Military Force: 

[Photograph: Khmer Rouge faction retained weapons in violation of 
Cambodian disarmament agreement] 

Source: United Nations. 

[Photograph: Canadian peacekeepers evacuate civilians wounded in 
Srebrenica] 

Source: Department of National Defence, Canada. 

Military forces with insufficient resources often met with failure: 

* In Somalia, the U.N. had too few troops to provide security 
throughout the country; 

* U.N. lacked sufficient troops and firepower in Bosnia to halt Serb 
attacks against safe havens; 

* U.N. not capable of forcing disarmament in Cambodia; 

* NATO had military means to carry out objectives in Balkans. 

[Photograph: Hutus look for Tutsis at checkpoint in Rwanda] 

Source: Amnesty International. 

[Photograph: U.S. troops patrol Route Arizona Marketplace in Bosnia] 

Source: GAO. 

Military should have had clear understanding of its role: 

* Troops should understand: 
- Mission objectives; 
- Measures of success; 
- Command and control structure; and; 
- Rules of engagement for lethal force. 

* U.N. weak and ineffective in Rwanda during genocide in part because 
U.N. troops and local civilians were unclear about the U.N.'s role; 

* NATO raids on Serb weapons sites in Bosnia aided by troops' and 
Serbs' understanding of NATO role. 

[Photograph: NATO secured ethnically divided Mostar, Bosnia] 

Source: NATO. 

[Photograph: U.N. pulled most of its troops out of Rwanda] 

Source: Amnesty International. 

Non-U.N. multinational forces fared better than U.N.-led forces: 

* Sufficient troops, equipment, and reinforcements more readily 
available; 
- NATO had 60,000 troops in Bosnia; 

* Clearer approach to effectively guide the use of force; 
- Some U.N. contingents failed to act during ongoing genocide in 
Rwanda; 

* Greater certainty that national contingents will carry out orders; 
- Italian contingent in Somalia negotiated with Aidid while rest of 
U.N. force tried to capture him. 

[Photograph: U.N. peacekeeper on guard as Cambodians vote] 

Source: United Nations. 

[Photograph: NATO provided security at ethnic boundaries in Bosnia] 

Source: GAO. 

Military must provide secure climate for civilian work to proceed: 

* Without troops to maintain order, developing rule of law in Somalia 
was impossible; 

* Large NATO deployments into Bosnia and Kosovo quickly created 
security to allow elections, reconstruction, and police training to 
begin; 

* The U.N. force's inconsistent protection of food delivery allowed 
Bosnian Serbs to manipulate access to food and use it as a weapon. 

* U.N. force in Cambodia provided enough security for credible 
elections. 

Observations on Civil Administration: 

[Photograph: U.N. police commissioner in Kosovo reports on the 
consequences of slow deployment of "desperately needed" international 
police] 

Source: United Nations. 

[Photograph: Local Cambodian officials conduct business] 

Source: GAO. 

Slow deployment of mission impeded establishment of civil 
administration: 

* In Kosovo, slow deployment of U.N. mission allowed Kosovo Liberation 
Army to temporarily run civil administration, jeopardizing U.N. 
mission's credibility; 

* Delays in U.N. deployment to Cambodia allowed one party to control 
key government agencies, such as Finance and Defense, undercutting the 
chance to build a fair government and control corruption. 

[Photograph: Soldier distributes food aid in Somalia] 

Source: Diocese of Southwark. 

[Photograph: Dutch soldiers protect refugee repatriation in Cambodia] 

Source: GAO. 

Civil administration was most successful when military and civilians 
worked together: 

* Poor coordination between military and NGOs in Somalia hindered 
initial food aid efforts; 

* U.N. peacekeepers provided security that allowed the U.N. High 
Commission for Refugees to help 360,000 refugees return to their homes 
in Cambodia within a year; 

* U.N. civilian police force, in coordination with NATO troops, 
provide public security until multiethnic Kosovo police force assumes 
that role. 

[Photograph: Bosnian returnees rebuild their community's school] 

Source: GAO. 

[Photograph: Citizen stands before a court in Cambodia] 

Source: Reprinted with permission of the Cambodian Daily. 

Civil administration was more successful when peace mission had 
authority to enforce agreements: 

* In Bosnia, the High Representative removed local officials that 
obstructed the return of ethnic minorities to their pre-war homes; 

* The U.N. mission in Cambodia created a corps of human rights 
prosecutors, but it was powerless to act when Cambodian judges refused 
to hear cases. 

[Figure: illustration of GAO report: GAO has reported and testified on 
corruption in Bosnia] 

[Photograph: International police in Kosovo confront rioters] 

Source: NATO. 

Civil administration was more successful when international response 
matched evolving needs: 

* The mission in Bosnia has been slow to provide resources in response 
to corruption, a problem that threatens implementation of the Dayton 
Accords; 

* The U.N. mission and NATO-led forces in Kosovo responded to 
potential civil unrest needs by providing police forces trained in 
riot control; 

* In Cambodia, the U.N. responded to immediate needs by reprogramming 
money into quick impact projects that provided jobs and reintegrated 
combatants. 

[Photograph: U.N. officials in Somalia attempt to negotiate safe 
passage for aid shipments with members of two warring factions] 

Source: United Nations. 

[Photograph: Bosnian-Serb leader Biljana Playsic has moderated her 
politics] 

Source: http://www.srbija-info,yu/vesti/2001-09/06/27858.html. 

Civil administration worked best when locals participated at every 
reasonable opportunity: 

* With few Somalis in the U.N. mission, local warlords exploited 
charge that the mission was a foreign encroachment on Somalia's 
sovereignty; 

* From 1996 to 2000, more moderate candidates in Bosnia have gained 
support as economic and civic participation have increased. 

Overall Issues for Oversight: 

* Has a process been established to create durable local institutions 
that can resolve disputes and enforce decisions peacefully? 

* Are military, civilian, and humanitarian efforts coordinated and 
adequately funded to accomplish common objectives? 

* Do the local population and officials act as key participants in 
making decisions about the operation? 

* What is being done to fight corruption? 

[End of section] 

Footnote: 

[1] U.N. Peacekeeping: Estimated U.S. Contributions, Fiscal Years 
1996--2001 [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-294], Feb. 
11, 2002. 

[End of section]